All-you-can-eat subscriptions sound great but they can leave a bad taste in your mouth.

The internet has revolutionised the way we consume content, supposedly putting everything we want at our fingertips – when and where we want it, rather than leaving us at the mercy of traditional content providers. New-world giants like Netflix and Quickflix are leading the way, but unfortunately all-you-can-eat subscription services can leave you picking through the scraps from the table.

Netflix, Rdio and the new Kindle Unlimited are portrayed as the Holy Grail of online content, offering all the movies, music and books you could want for only a few dollars each month. The subscription model is even extending to games with services like EA Access.

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Subscriptions can offer good value for money, especially in busy households, but don't make the mistake of thinking access to these all-you-can-eat libraries is the same as wandering the aisles of your local Video Ezy, JB HiFi or Dymocks.

Go in search of a particular movie, album or book in a subscription library and you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Much of the content you're chasing simply won't be there. It's not just an Australian issue, subscription customers are treated as second-class citizens in the US as well.

Go to Quickflix, punch in the name of a dozen of your favourite movies and see how many are only available on DVD and not to stream. Now head over to Netflix and try the same test, you won't fare much better. It's not just new movies that are missing, you'll be lucky to find your favourite flicks from the 80s and 90s. You will however find a lot of B grade, straight-to-DVD rubbish that most people wouldn't pay for anyway.

It's a similar story with subscription music services. The promise of millions of tracks sounds amazing, but many of your favourite artists simply aren't there. Sometimes on Rdio you'll even find albums with half the tracks greyed out. Sneak into the US Rdio service and the same songs are often missing.

Kindle's new Unlimited service follows in their footsteps. With unlimited access to 600,000 eBooks from Amazon you might think that you'll never need to buy a book again, but you'd be wrong. Apart from a few high profile examples you're unlikely to find the book you're looking for, unless it's a free book which is already in the public domain.

You can't lay all the blame for this mess on the service providers, as they're at the mercy of the various rights agreements with the content providers. Quickflix would love to offer more top-shelf movies and has worked hard over the last few years to strike better deals. It's the same with music services. I'm sure that Rdio doesn't vindictively grey out tracks just to annoy paying customers, especially when it knows people can go elsewhere and steal the entire album for free.

Sometimes artists with plenty of clout deliberately withhold their content from subscription services. Led Zeppelin and Metallica held out until recently, while The Beatles and AC/DC are still playing hard to get. But most bands don't have this kind of power and rights deals are negotiated by their recording label.

Content providers like recording labels and movie houses seem determined to ensure that subscription services can never meet all of our needs, releasing just enough to encourage us to subscribe while still forcing us to pay on demand for the content we really want. To be fair, you only need to watch two or three shows on Quickflix or Netflix each month and they've paid for themselves. You'll break even on an Rdio subscription if you buy half a dozen fewer albums each year. Even so, you'll still end up spending money elsewhere unless you turn to BitTorrent.

Treating subscription customers as second-class citizens is a strategy which has served the industry well for decades, but it's starting to backfire as the internet puts more a la carte content at our fingertips, legit or otherwise. Subscription services address the "pricing and availability" issues cited by Google as key drivers of piracy, but content providers will need to address the gaping holes in the subscription libraries if they want to steer people away from BitTorrent.

9 comments so far

The good news is there is a pile of other interesting things (e.g. apps, games, meals, etc.) to spend your money on.

I'm completely over the music and movie industries - we've been exploited and taken for granted for way too long. I've hardly listened to any new music recently, bought any CD's or movies because they don't produce very much good stuff, but when they do, they make it so hard to get.

Commenter

John

Date and time

July 30, 2014, 3:21PM

The subscription services are limited by the copyright owners who deliberately restrict the Australian market. Access the US version of netflix: it is filled to the brim with excellent content. It's more or less the sole reason US cable companies are trying to throttle internet traffic: they know full well their model is dying as people jump ship.

I'd argue that Australian spotify is already more than good enough for the average music fan. It has major releases soon after they're out and a decent back catalogue. It isn't my sole source of music: I still like to listen to a lot of local bands, and artists creating and sharing music for free in other ways, but it's pretty close.

Commenter

James Hill

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 30, 2014, 3:45PM

And so the punters (once again treated with utter contempt) will continue to download for free via BitTorrent with out a shred of guilt or remorse.

Commenter

WTF

Location

VIC

Date and time

July 30, 2014, 4:30PM

I use a subscription service, and oftentimes the movie/TV Show I want to watch is not available for streaming. That's when I turn to BitTorrent. It's got so bad recently that I don't even bother with the subscription service anymore and just go straight to BitTorrent.

I want to give you my money, I really do, but you wont accept it.

Commenter

Max

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 30, 2014, 4:52PM

I use JB's JB HIFI Now for music service and they have 90% of what i am looking for and that includes a lot of daggy 80's music!

Commenter

Johnno

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

July 30, 2014, 5:00PM

And the Federal Liberal Attorney-General's plan is to criminalise 20% of ordinary Australians to protect content providers from having to innovate to meet these emerging markets. It's shocking that the Abbott Government is so captured by private big business that they are willing to persecute Australians to artificially sustain outdated and inefficient business models.

Commenter

Me

Date and time

July 30, 2014, 6:29PM

Netflix isn't even (officially) available here in Australia. If you want it, you have to get it from the U.S. via a VPN, or other method.

It's rumoured to be heading Down Under, but expect a much reduced catalog, at a much increased price.

Commenter

SteveH

Date and time

July 30, 2014, 11:23PM

You still can't beat free.

I can download the latest episode of Game of Thrones in full HD with 5.1 surround sound and watch it where and when I want. No subscription service can compete with that.

P.S - I don't consider it stealing - I wouldn't steal a car, but if I could made a copy and have it for free I would!

Commenter

Good to be King

Date and time

July 31, 2014, 6:16AM

Google play music works for me, it has a good catalogue and I can listen offline.

Good to be King - you're not stealing the music (or the car), you're stealing the money that the owner (copyright holder) should have made from selling you the copy.